Film blog + 10 best films of 2012 | The Guardianhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog+series/10-best-films-of-2012
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What was the best film of 2012? Vote now and have your sayhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/14/best-film-2012-vote-poll
Disagree with the Guardian's top 10 films of the year? Let us know what you thought ought to have come top<p>What was your film of the year? For the Guardian film team, it was Paul Thomas Anderson's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/dec/13/best-films-the-master-paul-thomas-anderson">The Master</a>, of which Peter Bradshaw says:</p><p>Unconvinced audiences have praised the performances but complained about the lack of &quot;story&quot;. It's an understandable reservation, but I think Anderson is offering something closer to a colossally ambitious portrait, or dual portrait, perhaps comparable to Don DeLillo's depiction of Lee Harvey Oswald in his novel Libra, or the woman with polio lying in the tawny grass in Andrew Wyeth's painting Christina's World. And Joaquin Phoenix's agonisingly intense and blazingly committed performance makes this our film of the year.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/14/best-film-2012-vote-poll">Continue reading...</a>FilmCultureFri, 14 Dec 2012 10:50:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/14/best-film-2012-vote-pollSportsphoto Ltd/Allstar'We're the Guardian's No 1 film of the year!' says Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master. Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/AllstarSportsphoto Ltd/AllstarHammy and plummy … Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master. Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/AllstarGuardian Staff2012-12-14T10:50:00ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 1 – The Masterhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/13/best-films-the-master-paul-thomas-anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson's challenging epic on postwar America completes our roundup of the movies of the year<p>There are few Hollywood directors from whom &quot;event cinema&quot; is personally expected, but Paul Thomas Anderson is one. This year, he brought his reputation and prestige closer to Kubrick levels with this film, an epic based loosely on the early life of the Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Lancaster Dodd, a homespun philosopher and cult leader in postwar America. He is a bullish and conceited actor-manager figure who one evening chances upon a semi-homeless alcoholic called Freddie Quell who was invalided out of the US Navy with a nervous breakdown after VJ Day. Quell is played, unforgettably, by Joaquin Phoenix.</p><p>Dodd decides to make poor, muddled Freddie a special project of his, but his failure to indoctrinate his new disciple, to exert his mastery over this troubled man's mind forms the backbone of this gripping and deeply mysterious drama. Just as in Anderson's previous film There Will Be Blood, the movie suggests a secret history or prehistory of the US; just as in that film, a troubled quasi-father-son relationship is all important. And there is also another bizarre, absurdist flourish in the dialogue. As Daniel Day-Lewis's rapacious oilman, Plainview, boasted about sucking up another man's milkshake, so Hoffman's Dodd starts singing (I'd Like To Get You On) a Slow Boat To China – at great and uncomfortable length.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/13/best-films-the-master-paul-thomas-anderson">Continue reading...</a>FilmCultureDramaPaul Thomas AndersonJoaquin PhoenixPhilip Seymour HoffmanThu, 13 Dec 2012 22:00:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/13/best-films-the-master-paul-thomas-andersonReutersJoaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymor Hoffamn are shown in The Master. Photograph: ReutersReutersJoaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymor Hoffamn are shown in The Master. Photograph: ReutersPeter Bradshaw2012-12-13T22:00:00ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 2 – Tedhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/13/best-films-ted-seth-macfarlane
Seth MacFarlane's comedy about a pot-smoking teddy bear and his best friend John made us laugh until our stitches burst <br /><p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/family-guy" title="">Family Guy</a> creator <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/seth-macfarlane" title="">Seth MacFarlane</a>'s debut feature is crass and sexist. It wallows in nostalgia, flirts with racism, spends too much time scampering after a plot. It's also the funniest film of 2012. A raucous insult to good taste and good sense that warps the template of the American boy-man comedy into horrible new shapes.</p><p></p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/13/best-films-ted-seth-macfarlane">Continue reading...</a>Mark WahlbergSeth MacFarlaneComedyFilmCultureTedThu, 13 Dec 2012 12:52:43 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/13/best-films-ted-seth-macfarlaneUniversal Pictures/Tippett Studio/APOn the ropes ... Mark Wahlberg and Ted. (AP Photo/Universal Pictures) Photograph: Universal Pictures/Tippett Studio/APUniversal Pictures/Tippett Studio/APOn the ropes ... Mark Wahlberg and Ted. (AP Photo/Universal Pictures) Photograph: Universal Pictures/Tippett Studio/APHenry Barnes2012-12-13T12:52:43ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 3 – Amourhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/12/best-films-amour-michael-haneke
Our countdown continues with a masterstroke of power and pathos: Michael Haneke's haunting film about the end of a life<p>At 70 years old, Michael Haneke is now a double Palme D'Or-winner at Cannes and has moved appreciably ahead of those controversial figures, such as Lars von Trier and Gaspar No&eacute;, with whom he was once bracketed. His work, while not really softening in any way, now has a more human and personal resonance and his latest film, Amour, is an accessible story of great simplicity.</p><p>As well as everything else, it has been another example of his extraordinary formal technique, like that of the musician he hoped as a young man to be. He has cast two legends of the French cinema, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, as Georges and Anne, an octogenarian couple, former music teachers, living in happy, companionable retirement. But one day Anne suffers a stroke, perhaps brought on by anxiety due to an attempted break-in at their flat; she declines into dementia, and we follow Georges's increasingly unbearable task of caring for his wife in their apartment – having promised her he would never put her in a home.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/12/best-films-amour-michael-haneke">Continue reading...</a>AmourMichael HanekeDramaFilmCultureWorld cinemaCannes 2012Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:48:13 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/12/best-films-amour-michael-hanekePRGentle genius … Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant in AmourPRExtra Amour screeningPeter Bradshaw2012-12-12T11:48:13ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 4 – Silver Linings Playbookhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/11/best-films-2012-silver-linings-playbook
For a film with such big stars, David O Russell's screwball masterpiece has been a slow-burner – but easily deserves its No 4 spot in the year's best films<p>Next month, the BFI Southbank begins a big season of screwball comedies. It's not a genre much in vogue at the moment – instead, we've got the hots for romcoms that are either all kook or flat-out naff. But the BFI's programme just got topical, because along came <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/148764/silver-linings-playbook" title="">Silver Linings Playbook</a>, David O Russell's new screwball masterpiece. With an emphasis on the screwy.</p><p>Yet for a film that stars Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro, as well being an official crowdpleaser (it <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/17/silver-linings-playbook-toronto-film-festival" title="">took the audience award at Toronto</a>), it's been a curious slow-burner. Silver Linings Playbook opened three weeks ago in the UK and US, and has so far taken $20m (&pound;12.4m). With that cast. With those accolades. With the Weinsteins behind it. Why?</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/11/best-films-2012-silver-linings-playbook">Continue reading...</a>Silver Linings PlaybookDavid O RussellFilmCultureRomanceComedyFilm adaptationsJacki WeaverTue, 11 Dec 2012 14:59:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/11/best-films-2012-silver-linings-playbookJojo Whilden/APBrimful of real feeling ... Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. Photograph: Jojo Whilden/APJojo Whilden/APBrimful of real feeling ... Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. Photograph: Jojo Whilden/APCatherine Shoard2012-12-11T14:59:00ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 5 – Holy Motorshttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/10/best-films-2012-holy-motors
An uproariously illogical limo-ride through Paris screeches in at No 5 in our pick of the year's most flavoursome flicks<p>Films are always getting described as surreal, whether they are or not. But this year we saw a genuinely surrealist movie. Leos Carax's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/27/holy-motors-weird-world-leos-carrax" title="">Holy Motors</a> is unfettered by logic and common sense; it takes off in all directions – inspired by Cocteau, Franju, Lynch, Bu&ntilde;uel, Muybridge, Kafka, Lewis Carroll and many more.</p><p>It's a kind of road movie. Monsieur Oscar is an enigmatic businessman, played by Carax's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0491777/" title="">longtime collaborator Denis Lavant</a>, being ferried around Paris in the back of a white limousine, driven by C&eacute;line, played by Edith Scob. He has a number of mysterious appointments, for each of which he has to apply a new and elaborate disguise. But what on earth are these appointments?</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/10/best-films-2012-holy-motors">Continue reading...</a>Leos CaraxKylie MinogueComedyFilmCultureWorld cinemaMon, 10 Dec 2012 11:34:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/10/best-films-2012-holy-motorsAllstar/Les Films du Losange/Sportsphoto Ltd/AllstarBuckle up … Denis Lavant and Edith Scob in Leos Carax's Holy Motors (2012). Photograph: Les Films du Losange/Sportsphoto Ltd/AllstarAllstar/Les Films du Losange/Sportsphoto Ltd/AllstarDenis Lavant and Edith Scob in Holy Motors (2012) directed by Leos Carax. Photograph: Allstar/Les Films du Losange/Sportsphoto Ltd/AllstarPeter Bradshaw2012-12-10T11:34:00ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 6 – This Is Not a Filmhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/07/this-is-not-a-film
In at No 6 in our cinematic countdown: a glorious work by director Jafar Panahi, currently on house arrest in Iran, that was smuggled out of the country in a cake<p>If one accepts the judgment that Jafar Panahi is not a film-maker, then This Is Not a Film was 2012's best non-movie by a country mile. The Iranian director is currently under house arrest, convicted of &quot;making propaganda against the system&quot; and banned from writing scripts or shooting pictures for the next 20 years. His response, however, is by turns puckish, tragic and inspiring. It's a film about captivity that, by the very fact of its being, becomes a film about freedom. It's a cry in the darkness that's a gift to the world. Fittingly, the picture was smuggled out of Iran in a USB stick that was, in turn, concealed inside a cake.</p><p>Shot – partly on a digital video camera, partly on an iPhone – by Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, This Is Not a Film shows Panahi testing the limits of his cage, obeying the letter of the law if not quite the spirit. If he can't make a film, he can at least tell us its story. So he acts scenes from the script and turns his Persian rug into a movie set. One moment he seems tickled by his restrictions, perhaps regarding them as the ultimate test of ingenuity. The next he is beset by a mounting sense of futility. &quot;If we can tell a film, then why make a film?&quot; he asks, abruptly moved to tears.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/07/this-is-not-a-film">Continue reading...</a>Jafar PanahiDocumentaryFilmOscarsAwards and prizesCultureIranWorld newsCensorshipThis Is Not A FilmFri, 07 Dec 2012 10:27:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/07/this-is-not-a-filmPRJailhouse doc… director Jafar Panahi shot This Is Not a Film in his living roomPRIranian film-maker Jafar Panahi in his documentary This Is Not a Film (2011)Xan Brooks2012-12-07T10:27:00ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 7 – Once Upon a Time in Anatoliahttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/06/once-upon-a-time-in-anatolia
Our roundup of marvellous movies continues with Nuri Bilge Ceylan's quietly gripping masterpiece about a group of men out hunting for a corpse in the desert<p>With long-take art cinema seemingly in retreat, Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan is standing up for the old ways; this is a film-maker who explicitly wants to be compared to Antonioni or Angelopoulos, with a leavening perhaps of Anton Chekhov. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, his sixth feature, is arguably Ceylan's finest refinement of the manner so far. With its attenuated, almost glacial pacing, anti-dramatic narrative, and preponderance of world-weary middle-aged male characters, it's not what you would call a superficially attractive film, but it possesses a weight and substance that means it deserves its place on our list.</p><p>Perhaps the title helps – not, apparently, a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087843/" title="">Sergio Leone reference</a>, but arising from a line of dialogue suggesting the whole story is some kind of folk tale – and perhaps it's because there's a generic, crime-story backstop to the plot. It's simple enough: a group of policemen, a doctor and a prosecutor are taking a confessed killer to locate a body buried in the desolate Anatolian plain. The first third of the film plays out like a documentary, largely in long shot and in the buttery glow of car headlights, as the lawmen, initially relaxed, become increasingly frustrated at their prisoner's inability to find the corpse. Working-man chitchat is punctuated by some bizarre, almost surreal imagery: Ceylan reaches back to pre-Islamic iconography to present Kenan, the killer, backlit and haloed, with the air of a Byzantine saint.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/06/once-upon-a-time-in-anatolia">Continue reading...</a>World cinemaCrimeDramaFilmCultureNuri Bilge CeylanThu, 06 Dec 2012 15:51:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/06/once-upon-a-time-in-anatoliaPRTurkish delight … Once Upon a Time in AnatoliaPRQuietly spectacular … Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.Andrew Pulver2012-12-06T15:51:00ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 8 – Beasts of the Southern Wildhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/05/beasts-of-the-southern-wild
A child's fight for survival in an embattled bayou weaves pure magic. It's at No 8 in our roundup of the year's greatest films<p>Wink (Dwight Henry) and his daughter Hushpuppy (Quvenzhan&eacute; Wallis) live in the Bathtub. The water's been rising since the last big storm. Wink's getting sick, Hushpuppy's learnt that he won't be there for ever. So she's telling herself a story. It's a story of a girl called Hushpuppy and her daddy and her momma, who went missing. About the unreal, beautiful life of poverty that this community lives under. About the water that's rising and the animals that are dying and the aurochs (giant hairy pig monsters) racing to find Hushpuppy and tear her dream apart.</p><p>It's cool now – as its chances of an Oscar concretise – to have a dig at Beasts of the Southern Wild. To <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2012/06/beasts_of_the_southern_wild_reviewed_.html" title="">label Benh Zeitlin's vision of the bayou voyeuristic</a> and vilify him as another example of a film-maker from the big city wallowing in America's backwaters. But to suggest that Beast is exploitative is to tie this masterful piece of magic realism too close to the real world. Zeitlin is showing us America beset by climate change, poverty and class segregation, but he's primarily showing us this world as built – out of nothing – by a five-year-old. This could be post-Katrina Louisiana. This could be the end of the world. The film won't tell you which, and in a sense it doesn't matter.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/05/beasts-of-the-southern-wild">Continue reading...</a>Science fiction and fantasyFilmCultureWed, 05 Dec 2012 10:47:27 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/05/beasts-of-the-southern-wildAllstar/ Fox Searchlight Pictures/Sportsphoto Ltd/ AllstarBayou blues … Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild. Photograph: Allstar/Fox Searchlight Pictures/Sportsphoto LtdAllstar/ Fox Searchlight Pictures/Sportsphoto Ltd/ AllstarQuvenzhané Wallis as bayou child Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild: 'The film is variously poetic, mysterious and opaque.' Photograph: Allstar/ Fox Searchlight Pictures/Sportsphoto Ltd/ AllstarHenry Barnes2012-12-05T10:47:27ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 9 – Alpshttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/04/best-films-2012-alps
The next in our pick of the year's finest films is an absurdist Yorgos Lanthimos-directed tale about an unusual service catering to the newly bereaved<p>&quot;The end can be a new and often better beginning,&quot; promise the operatives of Alps, who hire themselves out to play-act the dead. Best friend just croaked? Teenage daughter killed in a car wreck? No problem, take steps. The Alps will live in your home and replay precious moments whenever you choose.</p><p>Alps, directed by the ingenious Greek film-maker <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/nov/11/greek-director-yorgos-lanthimos" title="">Yorgos Lanthimos</a>, is the best kind of ghost story in that it is about the afterlife of the living as opposed to the dead – spotlighting the gnawing nostalgia of the newly bereaved and the gaping holes that must hastily be filled. Aggeliki Papoulia stars as the sad-eyed nurse whose dedication to her job leads her progressively off-piste. She wants to be the child that was, the lover gone before. Once summoned, she will not be exorcised. Eventually even her desperate clients want nothing more to do with her.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/04/best-films-2012-alps">Continue reading...</a>DramaFilmCultureWorld cinemaTue, 04 Dec 2012 09:20:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/04/best-films-2012-alpsPublic DomainThe dead zone … AlpsPublic DomainThe dead zone … AlpsXan Brooks2012-12-04T09:20:00ZThe 10 best films of 2012, No 10 – The Queen of Versailleshttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/03/top-films-2012-queen-of-versailles
With the credits poised to roll on 2012, it's time for the Guardian's countdown through the year's best films. We start at number 10: Lauren Greenfield's tragicomic documentary about the US housing crisis<p>It's been a pretty good year for documentaries. Bart &quot;Banged Up Abroad&quot; Layton gave us the trashy thrills of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/18/imposter-frederic-bourdin-identity-theft" title="">The Imposter</a>, Alma Har'el's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2011/jun/10/sheffield-doc-fest-bombay-beach" title="">Bombay Beach</a> offered a mournful valediction to ruined lives on the American margins, while Werner Herzog – who else – took an intriguingly uninflected position on the death penalty with <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/apr/14/werner-herzog-into-the-abyss" title="">Into the Abyss</a>. But Lauren Greenfield's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2012/sep/02/lauren-greenfield-queen-versailles-interview" title="">The Queen of Versailles</a> was arguably the pick of the year, zeroing in on a very contemporary fable and telling its story with sly wit and a degree of empathy.</p><p>Greenfield hasn't arrived from nowhere, though: a photographer <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/mar/31/photography-lauren-greenfield-best-shot" title="">of considerable distinction</a>, she put herself on the map with her <a href="http://www.laurengreenfield.com/index.php?p=VPGHSTCS" title="">Girl Culture book</a> before breaking into feature-length film-making with the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF0lAlo80fU" title="">eating-disorder doco Thin</a>, based on a another photography collection.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/03/top-films-2012-queen-of-versailles">Continue reading...</a>DocumentaryWerner HerzogFilmCultureUS housing and sub-prime crisisUS economyBusinessPhotographyMon, 03 Dec 2012 15:51:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/dec/03/top-films-2012-queen-of-versaillesPRSub-prime time … David and Jackie Siegel in Lauren Greenfield's 2012 documentary The Queen of VersaillesPRDavid and Jackie Siegel in Lauren Greenfield's The Queen of VersaillesAndrew Pulver2012-12-03T15:51:00Z